About Me

I'm an eccentric young man with a passion for technology and learning. I graduated from Milwaukee School of Engineering with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. I am currently working for Dynamic Ratings in Sussex, WI as an electrical engineer. Our products monitor important parts of the power grid, such as transformers and rotating machinery. My primary tasks so far have been studying intellectual property from a company we acquired and designing hardware and firmware for power quality monitoring devices.

During the summer of 2022 I worked for Miller Electric Manufacturing, a division of Illinois Tool Works (ITW), as a software engineering intern. My focus was writing object oriented C++ to run on a STM32F4 microcontroller-based embedded platform. I followed company code standards, used Git and pull requests with CI and code review, and implemented software solutions using an internal software library of custom code and open source libraries - FreeRTOS and the Embedded Template Library (ETL).

My first engineering job was a software engineering internship at the Diagnostics division of Snap-on Incorporated from May to August of 2021. In this position I worked with a team of software developers to ensure software quality on Windows and RTOS based OBD-II scan tools by running manual unit tests. I would also investigate issues reported by customers. I wired and assembled a rack of ECUs from scrapped cars to quickly test Snap-on scan tools with different makes, models, and years. I participated in the team's daily stand-up meetings and learned scrum methodologies. Most of my time was spent testing a top-secret prototype of our next-generation scan tool, which would eventually be known as the Zeus+ and released in mid-2022.

During high school I worked for Brookdale Senior Living as a server.

In my time at MSOE, I was the RA (Resident Assistant) of MLH Floor 7 at MSOE and have hosted 15 bingo events for the university.

My hobbies include...

• Radio communication - I run a Part 15 low power radio station and have Amateur Extra callsign AD9AS.
• Playing computer games.
  • Team Fortress 2
  • Doom
• Fishing.
• Programming in C, Java, VB.net, sometimes Scratch (my guilty pleasure).
• Working on circuit boards and with analog circuits.
• Working on my BlackBerry and loading software on it that it should never be able to run.

Clubs and Activities

• MSOE Historical Society - President and Founder
• MSOE Libertarians - President and Founder
• MSOE Supermileage Vehicle - Electrical Engineer
• MSOE Amateur Radio Club - Publicity Chairperson
• MSOE Residence Hall Association - Bingo Man

More Fun Facts

• I love impressionist / realist paintings of wildlife and natural landscapes.
• I enjoy listening to oldies and classic country music.

2024 John Bilkey